POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?

Been thieving for some Starrett T handle tap wrench's for a while, but held off because I had picked up a couple old Craftsman's while dumpster diving last year. I thought I would take a crack at cleaning them up first. Both were rusty, heavily pitted and the large one was missing the T handle. Neither have the ball and spring inside for the T handle. Insides were complete and in great shape saving being covered with old grease and oil.

Decided a 3/8" x 8" grade 5 bolt would work for the T handle on the large one. I'm a little longer than OE by a couple inches, but I think that is OK. Also decided to turn a couple of aluminum balls for the ends using my MLA turning attachment. If you have ever tried to bust a 1/2-13 tap with your bare hands, you will understand (the older I get, the tougher they get).
A quick project that took me off the trail of trying to hunt down Starrett's.
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Great job on the G&E. Pretty sure it won't keep you from putting it to work. Cheers, Mike

NCjeeper said:
Finally done! Way more work than I thought it would be. Stripping the old 80 year old paint wasn't bad. I used a needle scaler and it worked well. It was all the scrubbing with scotch brite pads and Xylol to get the grime off, then wipe it all down again that wore me out. Scrubbing old iron on your hands and knees is not for the old. Anyways new paint job with red accents on the important stuff. Almost to nice to use it now.
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Today i had a full day of work, first at work then in the garage and last in my yard. First to get my attention was the Scenic with the new clutch now i can use the engine power but at idle the engine sounds like a bag of bolts. So i adjusted the valves, clean and re gaped the spark plugs. Not too hard but very dirty. Then i got to removing the headliner from the white elephant No 1. It's been sagging and was hold up by push pins. The old material peel off very easy and went straight in the bin. Then i used rags to peel back the old yellow backing and prepared the surface for the new material. I used Neostik glue with a brash and glued it in place. I left it to cure overnight tomorrow is going in the car. The difference is very noticable, this car always was let down by the headliner.
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GoceKU said:
Today i had a full day of work, first at work then in the garage and last in my yard. First to get my attention was the Scenic with the new clutch now i can use the engine power but at idle the engine sounds like a bag of bolts. So i adjusted the valves, clean and re gaped the spark plugs. Not too hard but very dirty. Then i got to removing the headliner from the white elephant No 1. It's been sagging and was hold up by push pins. The old material peel off very easy and went straight in the bin. Then i used rags to peel back the old yellow backing and prepared the surface for the new material. I used Neostik glue with a brash and glued it in place. I left it to cure overnight tomorrow is going in the car. The difference is very noticable, this car always was let down by the headliner.
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nicely done on the headliner. I hate when they fall apart. no one looks up until its crappy. And you always know.
 
a small project, but off the list none the less. Got a bunch of solid carbide boring bars from the last couple of auctions, including an oddball LH TPG style bar without a clamp. After A LOT of looking, found a replacement for not much money and I traded for a chip breaker, but when the clamp got here it didn't fit. So a bit of jiggling around with a carbide endmill and retapping the 8-32 hole to M4 got me this
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which when put together looks like this
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insert (TPG222) is a bit too thick, but it'll do for now. Don't imagine I'll use it a whole bunch, but it's nice to have for those oddball boring head set ups
 
I didn't do any machining tonight but decided to fire up the forge and do a little hammer work to knock the rust off some smithing fundamentals. My wife needed some hooks for new hummingbird feeders in our garden so I whipped these out. Not identical, but that's some of the allure of handmade things like these. I hit them with some primer and will work on painting them tomorrow. The wide end is forged to fit over a 2x4 as shown in one of the pics since they will hang from a lumber framed trellis. The end to hold the feeders is a fairly rough leaf just for something fun besides a plain hook. Not my best work, but I doubt the hummers are going to worry much about the appearance!

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